Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Gifts for souls not on earth

February 5, 2009 — 8:33 pm

Normally when shopping for baby gifts you run across all kinds of very cute, very neat, very useless items. You think to yourself, what good would that do? The child would never get to play with that, it is simply not practical or fun.

When shopping for a dead child the last thing on your mind is grubby hands or broken parts. I skip over practical gifts – no need to feed a child, or clothe them, or play with them. All I need is to remember. The gift is not for the child, it is for me.

Tonight I am searching for a birthday gift for him. I was thinking maybe an ornament of some sort for his shelf. I was looking at things with little verses printed on them, and they were quite nice. I put them on my list to consider. I saw a lot of cute “first birthday” clothes and just kept scrolling – what good are those to me? They have no meaning anymore. Picture frames – but there are no more photos.

And then up popped a little silver train piggy bank. My eyes filled with tears at the little stab in the heart. Trains. My dad bestowed upon me a love of trains from a very early age. I had my own set, and I was very excited to get some for Devin when he was old enough. His baby book had a train on the front. It just represented so much hope and dreams for his future. It held so much meaning for me. So of course I immediately backed out of the page with the silver train and continued searching for an ornament.

But after the initial upset wore off I realized, wouldn’t that be the perfect gift to honor him? A symbol of all the love and dreams and hopes that I held. Something for which my first, sad thought was that I will never get to buy that train. And so, like the taggies blanket, I’m going to get it anyways. My hopes and dreams and love do not end with his death.

Devin will have his train.

6 responses to “Gifts for souls not on earth”

  1. missingone says:

    *hugs* You are so right, that is just the perfect gift for him and for you.

  2. Lisa DG says:

    Nothing would be better than that gift. It sounds perfect!

    Your new page looks nice, Nat. I am here with you as Devin’s birthday moves closer. If you want to have a celebration- real or virtual- I am so there for you.

  3. anne says:

    beautiful. what a perfect gift.

  4. Lyanna says:

    I can’t believe it’s going to be a year soon :(
    The train sounds perfect hun.

  5. lianne says:

    can’t believe it’s almost a year thinking of you x

  6. Kristi says:

    It sounds perfect!